Freelancers know instability. But the impact of CORVID-19 has thrown a lot of us for a loop. It’s one thing to navigate fluctuating income. It’s another to have whole industries shut down, even if it’s only for a few weeks. The risk of sickness or the responsibility to care for someone else adds another layer. […]
Is a % Split the Answer to Your Freelance Career Problems?
When I started getting paid as a freelance blogger in my passion niche, I was making $45 a post. It wasn’t bad at the time, but now I make literally 10x that after switching to the niche I have employment experience in. If I ever went back, I probably wouldn’t dedicate more than a couple hours […]
5 Ways to Use Trade Publications to Master Your Niche
This post will help you with Phase 2 of the BlackFreelance Foundations Workbook…if you haven’t started yours yet, download it now! If you’ve been around here for a while, you know I’m quick to recommend trade publications to basically everybody. That’s because they changed my career (more on that later) but it’s mainly because trade […]
How to Become Your Own Mini-Marketing Department
This post will help you with Phase 3 of the BlackFreelance Foundations Workbook…if you haven’t started yours yet, download it now! Marketing is the hardest part of freelancing. No, really. That’s why so many freelancers stay at the mercy of platforms like Upwork or shouting into the void of social media, hoping […]
Ready to run back to employment? It’s time to take action.
This post will help you with Phase 1 of the BlackFreelance Foundations Workbook…if you haven’t started yours yet, download it now! I really can’t blame anybody for wanting to go back to relying on employment. I mean…they send you checks on a regular basis, they keep your work flowing…they set up your vacations and sick […]
What is “Strategic Freelancing” Anyway?
I’m a big believer that most of our freelance “failures” eventually point back to not being able to state why we’re freelancing in the first place, and then not having a plan that’s grounded in that ‘why’. If you follow me over on Twitter you’ve probably seen me mention “Strategic Freelancing”. It’s a concept […]
The Best (and Shortest) Intro to Freelancing I’ve Ever Heard…
I’ve been following Seth Godin for years now, and while he occasionally can get a little bootstrappy, he’s hands down my favorite marketing guru (he’s one of the few people I’ll use that title for seriously) AND he has a long history of working as a freelancer. That’s why I’m always excited when he takes […]
Exploiters vs. Partners…Are your clients taking advantage of you?
I just dropped a survival client that was getting on my last nerve. If you want to get caught up, they ended up getting me through a few tight months after a pretty large retainer client dropped me (and after I’d been slipping on my marketing), so I’m glad I found them, but honestly? They […]
You Have Options.
Leaving employment was a long process for me, but a few moments helped push that process along. The ones that pushed hardest were the overt efforts to remind me that I’m Black and that that fact could always be used against me. The last business trip I took was the last for a reason. Everything […]
Why “When can I quit my job?” is the Last Question You Should be Asking.
Updated 2/88/2020 There’s a couple of questions that you won’t see me answering much around here at BlackFreelance. The first is almost anything contract-related (because I’m not a lawyer…just know you should have one.) The second is when you should quit your job, and that’s for a couple reasons. First, I’ve never done it myself. […]